Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
For relatively prime positive integers ${{u}_{0}}$ and $r$, we consider the least common multiple ${{L}_{n}}\,:=\,\text{lcm}\left( {{u}_{0}},\,{{u}_{1}},\,.\,.\,.\,,\,{{u}_{n}} \right)$ of the finite arithmetic progression $\left\{ {{u}_{k}}\,:=\,{{u}_{0}}\,+\,kr \right\}_{k=0}^{n}$. We derive new lower bounds on ${{L}_{n}}$ that improve upon those obtained previously when either ${{u}_{0}}$ or $n$ is large. When $r$ is prime, our best bound is sharp up to a factor of $n\,+\,1$ for ${{u}_{0}}$ properly chosen, and is also nearly sharp as $n\,\to \,\infty$.